The coyotes and I in Orange County had a relationship I guess. There was this huge quary like place beyond the end of my street that just ended in a cul de sac that then went into wilderness and quaryness, and I would take the dogs walking there. It was a vast vast flattened ground zone in one part and I do not know what they were thinking they were going to be constructing there but something really big. I always worried about the coyotes because of that flattening of the land that lasted forever and forever I worried it would expand one day. But, beyond that, there was this valley that was full of rabbits and in between hills and suburbs just this valley of wilderness. In the middle of it all. And that is where the coyotes and a whole lot of rabbits lived.
And big black birds. There were lots of big black birds.
The first coyote I really met, I was walking Dolph and Loki, and we walked straight in face to face with this big coyote. Dolph weighed 50 pounds and that coyote was as big as Dolph so had to be 50 pounds too and he was red. Real red. I'd never seen a red coyote before. I mean Clairol red.
Loki was a baby, not even a year old. The coyote took off, and Dolph took off after the coyote, and I was on a high hill with the baby dog thinking, Hell, what now? So I told Loki to stay (and Loki was the best puppy he did stay there on that crest sitting the whole time) and I chased Dolph and Dolph chased the coyote but it was a lot easier to run on that ground with four legs it was rough brush and they were faster and after a half mile they had gone a mile, they were doing double my speed, and they hit the valley floor. And Loki was alone I could see him on that crest, and the sun was getting ready to go down. And I could see Dolph and the coyote's tails, Dolph's white, the coyote's red. And where they were other coyotes were coming out from behind bushes in a circle, and I thought, Hell, one lured him down, the pack is going to take him out.
But they didn't. They started playing hide. It was the oddest to watch. My dumb Norwegian Elkhound's little white tail bobbing around with all these coyotes' tails playing tag. So there was Dolph a half mile away playing with a pack of coyotes. There was Loki on the crest soldier puppy. And there was me in between with the sun going down so all I could see really were tails playing tag and I was in bad terrain.
And there was a gulley in front of me harder for me to jump than it had been for Dolph and the coyote, for me to cross it, I would have to climb down and back up the other side. And Loki, after dark, was little enough he'd be bait.
I went back and got Loki, and went and got the car, and then I drove around to a back route into the valley that was a few miles away, and walked in with a flashlight while Loki stayed in the car. By now it was dead black, real hard to see but I knew what direction I should be going and hoped I didn't fall in some gulley and kept walking and calling and then there was Dolph. Grinning straight out of the night.
After that I called Dolph Dances With Coyotes and we saw the coyotes a lot. They knew who we were. And they never lured my dog in again and they never made me run a damn half mile through hard brush again. They just watched us. And talked about us. And sometimes would shadow us on walks. Just sort of going with. And they were real nice about me crawling up to take photos of their dens when I did that paper. One time too walking out, it wasn't like they were doing a warning call about us. It was like they were doing a warning call about something else. So we stopped. And waited till the calls stopped. And then took another route out just to be safe. I don't know what was up there but whatever it was they didn't like it and they weren't the ones walking into it, we were.
Anyway. That is the Dolph dances with coyotes story and we spent a good deal of time around coyotes.
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